


eyes closed (he looks just like you)

by des_cieux



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Older Woman/Younger Man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 19:40:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21379474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/des_cieux/pseuds/des_cieux
Summary: "He left you." Riddle's dark gaze intent on her gold eyes. "But when I say that I never will, I mean it. You'll be with me. Forever."July 1944, London — Upon first meeting Tom Riddle, Nagini finds little to like in the Ministry's new intern.
Relationships: Credence Barebone/Nagini, Nagini/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	eyes closed (he looks just like you)

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this to exorcise some plot bunny demons.

** _July 1944  
_** ** _London, England_ **

The women in the office titter over him — the Minister’s handsome summer intern.

Handsome — their words and perception, not hers. Objectively, Nagini can acknowledge the sculptural beauty of his features, but she sees the contemptuous tilt of his controlled smiles whenever a higher-up’s back is turned. A face that could serve as an artist’s model on which to render a portrayal of Narcissus — a mask in truth. Evocative of her audiences at the circus where handsome people had thronged her tent all the time, but their ugliness had seeped out with their laughter and jeering taunts.

Moreover, he’s a child, a seventeen-year-old boy who carries himself with the confidence of a fully matured wizard, this Tom Riddle. The women with rings on their fingers and babes at home ought to know better.

At least it’s them Nagini admonishes in her head at first. Before she sees how crafted his reciprocating smiles are. 

Which is why she meets his approach with only impassive wariness when he slides the most recent issue of _ Le Monde Magique _ across her desk. 

“‘Demoiselle,” Riddle says in a low, pleasant voice as she looks down at the paper and not at him. Newt’s prompt flick of _ Episkey _ had cleared her face of the contusions and cuts around her orbital bone and down her cheek. She’s tired however of explaining to superficially concerned parties that yes, her left arm is still in a splint because she blacked out and into a fall down a rather pebbly-then-jagged mountain slope. Tired of observing how their concern from a distance morphs into fixated staring, hastily followed by backpedaling uneasiness, upon coming closer to her. Upon noticing how more yellow her eyes have become, the colour nearly swallowing up her corneas and carving her pupils more slitted than ever. Symptoms that no healing spell or potion from Newt can remedy.

“I heard you lived in Paris.” Riddle pushes the paper a few inches closer to her unreceptive, unscathed right hand. “I thought you might prefer to read this instead of _The_ _Prophet_.”

The flush heating her cheeks is not from his smile. He’s academically distinguished, one of Hogwarts’ most promising pupils since, some even whisper, Dumbledore himself. Riddle’s not one of the interns who got through the door on name and pedigree alone; indeed, she’s heard he’s an orphan. Like her. Like — another.

Unlike her, he’s benefitted from a formal education, and she doesn’t know how much he’s heard about her past, but she’s not about to clarify to an status-seeking_ intern _that most of what she saw of Paris was from behind cage bars, that she was a _ thing _ showcased and dressed up for spectacle there. She can converse in some French certainly, among the other languages she’d picked up while the circus had smuggled her around, but just one scan over all that densely compacted text reminds her why she’s more suited for fieldwork and not a desk job here.

“Thank you.” She glances up fleetingly to flash him a tight smile. “No need to call me ‘demoiselle.’ I’m not at all a girl anymore. Quite a bit older than you in fact, Mr. Riddle.”

“You don’t look it.” 

Oh. He’s one of those. He’s going to start trying to stroke her hair and comment on how prettily exotic it is, probably before asking if all women look so youthful where she comes from. Isn’t the office supposed to keep interns preoccupied with enough work so they don’t have time to chat with someone not directly supervising them?

She feels his eyes running over the top of her bowed, pretending-to-skim head. That’s right, Mr. Riddle, you’ll have to linger at another desk if you want besotted ogling.

“I see _The_ _Prophet_ on your desk whenever you’re in the office, and you actually seem to be reading it, as opposed to having it just for show. Do you have a particular segment of interest?”

“International.” She really only looks at the front page and the International columns on page eight.

“Ah, to keep abreast of how the war against Grindelwald goes. You’re usually stationed on the Eastern Front with the Scamanders’ task force — and Professor Dumbledore, aren’t you? I heard you’re assigned to tracking down Undesirable Number Two — that Obscurial who’s become Grindelwald’s most powerful acolyte. Are you an Auror like the older Scamander?”

“No, I’m a — special consultant, or I suppose that’s what the team calls me sometimes. Was never qualified enough to go through the Auror training programme. Didn’t go to school and never sat for any formal exams, much less the N.E.W.T.s.” Upon first arriving at the Ministry, she’d lasted a week as Torquil Travers’ assistant before he’d deemed her a completely incompetent substitute for Leta. _ Don’t waste my time with some uneducated charity case you picked off the streets _ , she’d overheard Travers rage at Theseus. _ I don’t have time to train her in what we do here when she hasn’t even used a wand! _

Riddle shrugs, an indolent smile again on his lips. “Surely, you’re overrating formal education. Professors are convenient for clarifying initial areas of ambiguity, refining hypotheses, and nudging you in one direction or another, but most of the useful magic in my life, I’ve taught myself. What’s more, you managed to get a position at the Ministry without wasting time in tedious classes. I would love to learn more about what you do, if you wouldn’t mind sharing with a humble intern?”

Humble intern. What utter tosh. The way people are blabbing on and on about him — prematurely in her view, he’ll likely be offered the post of Junior Assistant to the Minister by this time next year. The creme-de-la-creme job for any fresh-out-of-school graduate. Having the ear of the Minister. From there, Riddle could climb several pay scales above hers in a handful of years. With such access to Spencer-Moon and the Minister’s special advisors, Riddle can comfortably remain in London and advance to drafting orders for her office to carry out in the field, but he doesn’t appear the boots-on-the-ground type to prefer camping out in ramshackle safehouses.

He’s still looking at her, and she holds his gaze now because there’s no further point in feigning to read about French politics. His eyes don’t widen in alarm at more clearly perceiving her yellowed irises. Curiosity in his darkening eyes as his own pupils bloom, and then he slants his body closer at the edge of her desk.

Before straightening as Newt bounds over to her low-walled cubicle. With more measured steps, Theseus approaches, and already at the door, Tina waves with a grin.

“Nagini, ready to go home?” asks Theseus while Newt politely acknowledges the boy with a smile. “Oh hullo, you’re one of the interns, aren’t you? Mr. Thomas Riddle?”

“Just Tom.” Already a politician’s polished smile, ripe for the cameras, on those molded lips. He could make a name and career for himself in film, this one, should he eventually find the Ministry too _ tedious _. “Honored to make your acquaintance, Mr. Scamander. Both of you, I should say. Not many...Hufflepuffs have such formidable reputations.”

Also, a politician’s flair for veiled barbs. An immediate downturn to the corners of Nagini’s mouth on account of two of the most open-hearted friends she’s ever been blessed with, but Newt merely slides past the backhanded affront, turning back to her and Theseus. “Do you two want to come over for supper? Jacob’s staying with his friends tonight so it would just be us four, and I can whip up vegetable ratatouille? Garden’s gone mostly to root rot since we’ve been gone so long, but some of the tomatoes still look quite good.”

Gesturing again, Tina nods impatiently towards the door, mouthing, ‘let’s go.’ Newt’s eyes swivel to her before her mouth even fully forms the summons.

Anyone with eyes can tell how they’re a resplendent pair, still as eager to please one another as honeymoon lovers. For two weeks following that fateful Alliance rally in the Parisian mausoleum, Nagini had lived with them — well, with Newt really since Tina was a guest then as well — before she’d concluded that they deserved a flat to themselves, a space to comfort each other and grieve their recent losses of family and friends by themselves. Room to confess their love and be in love without interloper eyes.

“Uh — ” Nagini and Theseus trade glances. The four of them have spent months sharing meals of canned rations on the Eastern Front, and while Newt’s cooking always turns out lovely, it’s hard to imagine that a couple with scarcely any privacy to themselves these past months truly wants another night with company. 

“Perhaps another evening,” Theseus tells his brother. “Nagini and I should probably catch up on our reports anyway.” His eyes drift to hers with a smile. “Ready?”

“Yes, let’s go home.” To Riddle, she cants a polite nod, which he returns. 

She feels his eyes on her as she follows the others out of the Ministry. 

* * *

  
  


“He’s such a creepy kid,” Tina mutters as soon as they’re street level. 

“Tina! You’ve only talked to him a couple of times.” No real bite in Newt’s reprimand. Not once has Nagini heard him say a harsh word to the lanky American witch.

“Which is plenty enough to get the sense that there’s something off about him,” she retorts, hands jamming into her skirt pockets, but crooking her elbow enough for Newt to loop his arm with hers. “Yes, yes, I know. He’s purportedly the most gifted wizard to come out of your school in generations, but what Jacob says about him — he doesn’t just scold the younger students when he docks points, you know. He terrorizes them. Jacob says that ever since Riddle became a Prefect, he rules the school like it’s his playground, and as his enforcers, he has his gang of snakes —” 

“Slytherins,” interjects Newt, and the glare Tina shoots at the Brit daring to correct her lexicon sends him playfully dipping his chin into his collar.

“Slytherins, fine,” she continues. “They don’t just sound like your typical clique of school bullies. There’s something actually malicious about that group. Riddle, Avery, Mulciber, Nott, Malfoy, Lest —”

Both Theseus and Newt stiffen, the latter sneaking a glance at the elder’s clenched jaw and fists. 

“I’m not surprised to hear Lestrange is in that group,” Theseus says softly after a tense lull. “I didn’t like Leta’s parents when I first met them, and that impression never really changed. I always wondered how a father that cold could raise such a sweet girl, and after learning what he did to her true mother — I didn’t even speak to him at the funeral, not that his attendance was anything but a selfish show of face.”

Nearly two decades since his fiancee’s death, and Theseus remains unmarried, a devotee only to Leta’s memory. He’s never even brought another woman to the house, and Nagini would know, having moved into his home of mourning after leaving his brother’s flat. 

The conversation resumes, shifting to other subjects. At the entrance of their flat’s building, Newt and Tina wave goodbye, and then a more stilted exchange between Nagini and Theseus as they continue on to his townhouse.

“I spoke to Travers about the Austrian mission,” Theseus tells her, hands in his pockets as though he’s lecturing his brother. “He’s not upset —”

_ Translation _: Their boss is furious. 

“He just thinks that you should take a break from active fieldwork for a while. That will give you time to have some consultations at St. Mungo’s, and I’ll connect you to more Healers with their own private practices as well. In the meantime, Newt or his contacts could figure out why the blackouts have been occurring more frequently, or if we can get you better medications.”

What Travers really thinks then: it’s her fault they lost track of Credence in Austria when they were so close to capturing him. Her fault, and he’s going to make damn well sure that he grounds her here and that she’ll never get a chance to see Credence again, unless it’s his corpse photographed for a newspaper.

The townhouse, to which they shuffle over debris-strewn streets, is located in one of the posh neighborhoods remaining, most other Wizarding families having moved their regular residences to the city’s outer boroughs or beyond. In reaching the townhouse, they pass blocks of completely demolished Muggle homes. Any houses still intact exhibit only darkened windows. At least Wizarding London hasn’t been forced to ration light like their Muggle neighbors, but like the magical community, the Muggles are engulfed and shadowed everywhere by war. 

To Muggles, Theseus’ house probably resembles the other bombed-into-rubble dwellings, but past the boundaries of his modified _ Protego Totalum _ — a tan-bricked and white-windowed townhome. Elegant but comfortable furniture inside. The house where he’d probably imagined he would start a family of his own. Before blue flames razed those dreams to ashes.

“I’ll check in with the second floor ward at St. Mungo’s again,” Nagini agrees as they enter the house. Her hand reaches for his sleeve. “But promise me that you and Newt won’t leave me here, without telling me first, if Travers greenlights the task force for another mission? If I’m left alone in London and have to rely on the papers to keep apprised of what you’re all doing, I think I’d go a bit mad and drive everyone else in the office mad too with how frantic I’d feel.”

Warm understanding immediately awash over his kind face. His hand gentle on her shoulder. “Of course. You’re part of the team. We’re not leaving you anywhere. I promise.”

What echoes in her head later that night though, as she struggles to fall asleep, is that this is not the first time someone has made this promise to her.

Not the first time sincerity seemed to issue with the promise.

And no matter how fervently she wants to rest assured in his word, the past cautions her to believe otherwise.

* * *

“Want to tag along and help us screen the new candidates?” Cassius Bell asks, waggling his eyebrows. “See which ones have the stomach for Auror work?”

“You mean your customary hazing ritual?” Nagini still gets up from her desk though. After days of analyzing local Austrian reports of a baffling, fast-moving black smog over certain pastoral hamlets and adding notes to the team’s wall-enveloping map, watching Auror tryouts sounds like an appealing stretch for her legs at least. 

They apparate to the vast stretch of field their colleagues sometimes use for inter-departmental Quidditch matches, but from where they arrive at one end of the pitch, near-opaque fog obscures their view of the other end’s goal post. 

The applicants consist of six young adults, nervously shifting their weight from side to side in their thick-soled combat boots and dark fitted shirts, robes and jackets discarded. 

“Good and sensible,” Travers says approvingly, nodding as he inspects down the lined-up contenders. “We can’t all be as dapper as Scamander in the field after all.”

Chuckling, Theseus claps his hands together for their attention. “Alright, candidates, today we’ll be evaluating you on how efficiently and effectively you make it through the obstacle course we’ve assembled for you here. Objective is to retrieve the artifact at the other end of the pitch, which my colleague Nagini will be guarding. Clock set at thirty minutes. Any questions?”

“We have one additional late joiner!” calls out Cassius. 

A tall silhouette parting through the fog of the field. Riddle, long and lean in all black. A few days ago, she’d considered him just suited for office work and brownnosing Department heads and their wives. Out here though, he looks like an assassin that could kill and get away with it, leaving nary a trace.

“Oh, Mr. Riddle.” Theseus eyes him questioningly before looking askance at the other evaluating Aurors. “I thought you were interested in joining the Minister’s staff, not our Department.”

Shrugging languidly — insolently in Nagini’s opinion — Riddle just rolls his shoulders and smiles. Past Theseus. Directly at her. “Keeping my career options open, and this seems like quite the invigorating exercise after a week of desk work.”

Where does this little upstart get his nerve? Comparing Auror trials to running laps is absurd. Only the best of Hogwarts’ graduates, or those who wish to apply from other schools, even make it this far, and past this stage, not everyone makes it through the three-year programme, designed to wash out anyone who isn’t fully committed. 

As Travers and Theseus bow their heads together to discuss breaking protocol for this boy, Nagini draws nearer with crossed arms. “Mr. Riddle. You can’t treat these tryouts as some afternoon escapade. Why don’t you come back, apply after graduating, and give it your best effort then? You haven’t sat for your N.E.W.T.s so there’s no point to your presence today when you don’t even meet the basic requirements.”

Riddle tilts his head jauntily at her, those dark curls somewhat marring the otherwise immaculate image of a boy made of chiseled stone. “Touched by your concern, miss, but you needn’t worry. I’m a good test-taker so exams won’t be an issue for me. The character and fitness aspect of the application might be a different story, if Dumbledore has his way, but fortunately for me, the war’s keeping him rather preoccupied.”

Disgruntled at his smug tone, Nagini moves to walk away, but his hand catches the crook of her arm. She can feel the heated planes of him at her back. 

“Did you tell me to call you ‘madame’ because you live with the old widower?” His breath bent close to the whorl of her ear. 

With a sharp wrench of her elbow, she breaks his hold on her and pivots around to fix him with cold eyes. Riddle looks predatory in this light, his lips still drawn back in a sneer, or maybe this is how he truly looks whenever he sheds enough of his mask. 

“First off, Theseus is a friend,” Nagini tells him, quashing the mere insinuation. “And he’s Head Auror. Shouldn’t you be focusing more on impressing him and earning yourself a permanent offer here after your trial run?”

“I’ve already made an impression on the Minister himself,” Riddle says dismissively. “If I wanted a permanent offer here, I’d only have to ask for it.”

Merlin’s beard, does anyone other than Tina notice how this boy wears his disdain for the world more comfortably than those smiles he doles out so casually around authority figures?

Her brow knits at him. “What do you want then?”

His gaze drops, and she looks down at her hands in panic, scanning for any hint of scales and fighting the urge to tuck her hands behind her back, but then his eyes climb back to her face. “My desires have been ever-evolving works in progress, but at the moment, I’d settle for getting to know you better. Since you seem so averse to the idea though, I guess I’ll take meeting you again at the other end of the pitch since it looks like we’re about to get started. Madame, until then. Thirty minutes, was it?”

Backing away, she just shakes her head at him. “Yes, I can see why character and fitness might be a problem.”

* * *

To her considerable irritation, he proves with astonishing agility that the magical combat tests are indeed unlikely to impede his ambitions. Perched on a broom suspended near the goalpost, Nagini has to concede that she’s only observed three other wizards duel and move this fast, like wildfire steadily licking its way through the fog and across the field. Two of those wizards will probably persist through history as two of the most powerful to have ever walked this earth, and the third has the advantage of being able to fly. 

But Riddle moves like he could one day overshadow any of them as he blasts through and past pop-up target after target. Most of the mannequins are simply stuffed with feathers or sand, but one of them, ostensibly fitted with an accessory that reflects his_ Expulso _ back at him, explodes in a burst of viscera that genuinely simulates the appearance of entrails as Riddle returns fire. The viscous fluid dissipates his shielding _ Protego _ upon contact though, and with a snarl of realization, Riddle slashes his wand-arm forward, a force rippling out through the air with the motion to topple at least five targets. 

For a few scant, perplexing moments, she sees him standing stock-still and not scrambling forward like the rest of the candidates. The fog virtually mantles, then shrouds his form, and then — 

The inferno that surges forth from his wand seems to swallow everything — the fog, the remaining targets and paltry obstacles in his path, the layer of grass on the field. Shouts in the din of her ears as more than one candidate drops down to the dirt, scuttling on hands and knees to get away from the rapacious flames. Growing even more in stature, the mouth of Riddle’s Fiendfyre roars fifty feet high, capsizing one of the spectator stands and sending several Aurors zipping on their broomsticks out of its way. 

Nagini has not seen such dark magic devour a whole sky like this since the task force’s last collision with Credence, and before that, since Grindelwald unleashed a transmuted_ Protego Diabolica _ over Paris. If her eyes reflect anything right now, it would be this fire, forging directly her way.

So much for a calm week of no fieldwork.

Stance widening back on the ground, she unfurls a whip of lightning from her wand, twining it forth and around the neck of Riddle’s Fiendfyre creature. A basilisk, she recognizes as her white-knuckled, nail-digging grip on her wand tightens even further into her palm. She almost wants to laugh at how the boy’s summoned a much larger, fiery variant of what her other side might see in a mirror were she still cognizant enough during those transformations to so look.

Across the distance under their duelling spells, Riddle’s gaze intersects with hers. The fire bathes his features in lighted glow, adding colour to his pallor. He looks like he belongs in hellfire. 

He looks like — he’s enjoying this.

Like this is the most intimate exchange he could have with another soul, trading and countering curses as they circle each other with belligerent intent.

Still wrenching her wand to wrap his Fiendfyre under extinguishing control, Nagini lurches back in alarm as the towering serpent contorts its neck to turn its mouth on itself, severing her lightning coil with one snap of its blazing jaws and twisting back to dive, to lunge straight for her.

Planting herself almost flat on her front to dodge the swoop of fire, she braces herself to spring back up, to utter _ Protego _and another defensive spell —

The words never emerge from her mouth.

She staggers, falling back down, curling into a ball — trying to command her limbs enough to curl into herself, but no joints or nerves respond. All she feels is the chillingly familiar sensation of her skin sloughing, pebbling, transforming into scales.

Dark spots crawl over her vision, and then a looming silhouette swallows up her conscious view entirely.

* * *

“Nagini? Madame? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."

Someone is stroking the tendrils of hair plastered to her clammy forehead. Long, tender strokes. Like someone actually cares about her. 

"Please wake up."

"Please. I’m sorry.”

Her vision clears, and she stares dazedly up at Riddle, whose chest she finds her face curled up against. His body heat seeping through his fitted black shirt and warming her cheek. She feels his sigh of relief reverberate through his chest rather than really hearing it.  
  


“I’m sorry,” he says again, his dark eyes solemn and not filled with mocking for once. “I shouldn’t have done that. I got so impatient, and I — lost control. I never meant to hurt you.”

Lost control. She wants to scoff at the boy, but her throat feels too caked with smoke to sufficiently vocalize her skepticism. One loses control over Nifflers, or over one’s body if afflicted with a blood curse; one doesn’t purposely cast Fiendfyre under non-murderous circumstances and simply reduce it to losing control. 

“Let me up — I need to get up.” She pushes her upper body off his thighs, and that’s as far as she gets because one glance down at herself, and she realizes why she _ can’t _.

No legs to rise and stand on. Up to her hips, the green and black patterned scales shimmer at her, scabbing into half-transformed skin across her pelvis. She feels faint enough to fall back against Riddle’s front.

“Madame? Has this ever happened before?” His voice gentle whereas now, it’s she who wants to rage and beat her fists at something. “You’re a Maledictus, aren’t you? I know there’s no — complete remedy, but do you have anything you use to treat it? Any medications? Tell me what to do. What you need, and I’ll go get it.”

No, you stupid boy, she wants to scream, no effectual medications even though everyone throughout her life has brought up the possiblity to her. Even more emphatically — no, she’s never been caught in half-transformation like this, neither human nor snake but currently suspended in this horrifying hybrid body. 

“Breathe, Madame, you need to breathe and calm down.” His hands knead her trembling shoulders, traveling down her arms.

She can’t. Not when her body has now betrayed her even more than it has before. She needs to find Newt, or a healer, but she can’t even fathom how she’s going to get off this field without more people realizing what she is. What’s she becoming. 

“Nagini.”

The hairs along the back of her neck rise. Prickling sensation along her arms, her still-human hands. No one has ever uttered her name like how it falls from his mouth. The way he said it — the sound — a sound she feels like she could understand even when lost to herself.

“Nagini!” Theseus barreling towards them. The other Aurors and the applicants, mouths open and aghast.

She tries to focus her eyes on their boots rather than their revolted faces. 

At her back, the boy’s hold doesn’t loosen.

Shoving Riddle’s hand off of her, Theseus bends himself to shift her into his arms. Even though only the length of her down to her thighs fits within his cradling hold. The rest of her — oh, god — coils down to the ground.

“If you don’t get a me a stretcher and a mode of transport in the next ten minutes,” Theseus snaps at one of the junior Aurors. “I’ll be signing your termination letter first thing tomorrow morning.”

As the subordinate hastens off, he turns back to Riddle, his tone as cutting and crisp as ice. “And if I’m free tomorrow, I’ll deal with you then, Mr. Riddle, but suffice it to say — as long as I am Head of the Auror Office, I will personally recommend to the Minister that you are unfit for any position within our ranks. Or, for that matter, any Ministry position at all.”

“Theseus, he didn’t intend for it to go so far — he lost control of the Fiendfyre,” Nagini says softly as the Auror bends again, to gather more of her into his arms. “It’s fine. You can put me down. I’m getting muck and grass stains all over your suit.”

“Sod the suit,” he mutters over her head. “And curse Riddle. Tina’s right about him. There’s something wrong with a wizard that easily riled into using dark magic like that.”

Half-heartedly, Nagini nods into his chest.

What lulls her into troubled sleep though, later at the hospital, is the echo of that sibilant voice.

Repeating her name.

Even in the dark woods, she can hear him.

Can _ understand _him.

  
  
  
  



End file.
